INSOMNIA - explained

It's Mother's Day in just over a week. The shops are dripping with cards, cuddly toys and present ideas. At school, the children are lovingly decorating cards with things they know their mummies will love. I smile brightly and tell them Mummy will LOVE it!

It's been 9 years since I bought my mum a card and wished her Happy Mothers Day. Just a few weeks later in 2001 she had gone.

In January 1996, I was in my final year at university. A 21 year old with her whole life ahead of her. Dreams, ambitions, aspirations, all there waiting to be explored. All in all my life was pretty damn peachy.

"I've found a lump in my breast" Mum told me. We were sat on the bed in mum and dad's room. "I have to have an operation in a couple of weeks. We didn't tell you sooner because we didn't want to spoil Christmas for you"

And that sums my mum up to a complete T. Selfless, always thinking of others, always worrying about how we would cope. During her 5 year battle with cancer she only cried infront of me once. And that was just before Mother's day in 2001. She cried because she didn't have the strength to get up the stairs anymore and it took us over an hour of bum shuffling, heaving and sheer will power to get her up the stairs and onto the bed. She cried because she hated having to ask me for help. But most of all she cried because she had cried infront of me! She hated that she couldn't protect me from what was happening.

And I cried with her, for all the birthdays she would miss, for the lost girly lunches and shopping days, for the future grandchildren who would never know the woman who would have made the most amazing grandmother. I cried because there was nothing I could do to help her. But most of all, I cried because I had cried infront of her!

I'll never forget the day she died. The time and place will be forever etched upon my memory, part of who I now am


I Wasn't There

Tired from waiting
tired from watching
tired from driving
tired from looking

Excuses, excuses!
I wasn't there
Gone for a rest,
to sleep for a while

While I was sleeping
You left, you're gone
Your life slipped away,
Your soul no more

I missed it! I missed it!
I wasn't there...


I'm sorry.



And that's why my insomnia won't go!